One little choice at a time

Jen Keefe wrote:

I abandoned the stuff I thought we "had" to do and disrupted our peace, and filled it with stuff that made us happy. This was all one little choice, in the moment, at a time.

The healing and effect this has had on both my husband and me is immeasurable. Being the parent to my kids that I needed when I was younger has wrapped my own self in a comfort I never got to have before.

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/being/allin
photo by Cátia Maciel

Quirks

Lyle Perry wrote:

Quirks are what makes us individuals. What a boring world it would be without quirks. Everyone would know exactly how everyone else likes things because we would all like them the same. (What a horrible thought.)

The cool thing about unschoolers is that we get the chance to revel in our quirks, rather than hide them in fear of ridicule. And for the quirks that really do bother us, we have the opportunity to learn to deal with them without the pressures of society bearing down on us.

We have the gift of truly being ourselves.

— Lyle Perry

Conversations With Sandra Dodd (archived)
(sixth post down)
photo by Rosie Moon

Peace is all about choices.

If you want to live peacefully, make the most peaceful choices.

Peace is all about choices.

Choose to breathe consciously.
Choose understanding over ignorance.
Choose to make choices.
Choose awareness over oblivion.
And make choices based on the principles you live by.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo and art by Marcia Simonds

Bonus!

If unschooling makes us hopeful, problem-solving people, what an unexpected bonus!

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Sandra Dodd
Bonus bonus: If you use green onions with roots still on, stick the white bottom parts in little containers in a windowsill, and they might keep growing for a while. Bonus onions! (Those went in just about 2" long, and I waited a week.)

What really matters

Meredith wrote:

I always wonder what people expect when they ask unschoolers what materials they use, since it's a question that does come up now and then, generally by academic homeschoolers but sometimes in a daycare context.... The flattering reason, I guess, is that they think we're all geniuses at "making learning fun" but it's ultimately the wrong question. There aren't any special materials. Our homes are full of normal things, commercial toys, cartoon pajamas and pokemon sippy cups, tvs and video games, with piles of things that need to be sorted and put away slumped in corners, or cluttering up the couch and stairs. Many families unschool on slim material resources. The magic of unschooling is in the relationships.

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/partners
photo by Rachel Singer

"The magic of unschooling is in the relationships." —Meredith
(I repeated the last line because it's good.)

Peaceful rough-and-tumble

Connie Coyle wrote:

Something that I have seen with both gentle parenting and attachment parenting is that those ideas have been used as a means of coercion and control. No matter how you disguise it, some things are still controlling.

As with anything, I think that how a person defines certain things can have a big impact on whether or not it might interfere with unschooling. The closest example I can think of is the notion of gentle parenting getting in the way of a mom being rough and tumble and wild. If a kid is super physical and needs to get really rough, then a parent might shy away from that because it is not perceived as gentle. If my memory is correct, I think I have seen that brought up in conversations before.

I also thought of the page about peace on Sandra's site: Great Big Noisy Peace [SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy]

Gentle can be screwed up the same way as peaceful in that a person can gently control you and manipulate you.

—Connie Coyle

SandraDodd.com/otherideas
(Gentle parenting advice as a hindrance?)
photo by Christine Milne

Fun and wonderful

Once someone chose the subject line "Battle with candy", in a discussion, and one response was (from me):

The candy isn't fighting back. It's a battle with fear and control, if it's a battle at all. But it's not a battle with candy.

Also me, there:

A focus on what is fun and wonderful is better than a focus on discomfort. Candy can be fun and wonderful. A parent saying "no" and calling joy "strung out" isn't nearly as fun or as wonderful.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Cally Brown